This invention relates to a household trash delivery system extending between the home and a point alongside the curb area in front of the home. A principal aim of the invention is to provide a trash delivery system that enables a homeowner to transport trash from his home to a curb-side location without having to carry the trash barrel through the intervening space.
Many people find it difficult or bothersome to move loaded trash barrels from their garages to the curb where the barrels can be emptied by employees of a garbage pick-up service. The barrel transporting task may be especially difficult for elderly persons or for women, or for disabled persons.
The present invention contemplates a trash barrel-transporting system that includes a hollow elongated rail structure extending at ground level between a barrel-loading zone near a person's garage or side door and a barrel-unloading zone at the side of the road in front of the person's home. Typically the rail structure would have a length varying between about forty feet and eighty feet, depending on the size of the lot and the orientation of the home on the lot.
A wheeled cart is arranged for back-and-forth motion along the rail structure. This cart has sufficient area to support two trash receptacles. In a typical situation the cart will have a length of about four feet and a width of about two feet. The cart has four ground wheels arranged in pairs near opposite ends of the cart. The cart is arranged in straddling relation to the rail structure, with the ground wheels spaced laterally outboard from the rail structure centerline in opposite directions.
An endless conveyor chain extends longitudinally within the rail structure so as to be movable through the space below the cart. The cart is connected to the chain at points near its opposite ends so that as the chain is propelled along the length of the rail it carries the cart from one end of the rail structure to the other end of the rail structure. The weight of the cart is borne by the laterally spaced ground wheels. The chain is required only to provide a horizontal propelling force for the cart.
A reversible electric motor is drivably connected to the endless conveyor chain, such that the cart can be mechanically moved from the home or garage out to the curb, and later moved back to the initial starting point (after the garbage serviceman has emptied the trash receptacles on the cart). This cart-transport system can be operated automatically by push button control, thereby eliminating the need for the homeowner to lift and carry loaded trash receptacles from the home out to the curb.